Hi all.
I'm involved with planning the ride for charity, at work. Anyone know good places on the route to stop and regroup/park a support vehicle etc.
Any tips and advise for planning such a ride would be much appreciated.
Cheers.
Which route are you taking and on which canal?
Bike... canal.... ride
Your doing it wrong. 
nuff said
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/llc/canal_cycling_guide.html
Assuming you're using the Leeds/Liverpool canal but have a look at the above link . The canal goes through plenty of villages along it's route so plenty of places to re-group. You really need to plan your eating/hydration for the ride .The only real climb on the route is at Wigan so you'd miss that but would still need to navigate around the Foulridge tunnel(easy as it's signposted).
I did the full route a few years ago with a mate (14 hours including breaks) it's not something I can see myself ever repeating as it was very ouchy in a delicate after.
i did it too with a friend of mine, really didn't appreciate the cobbled towpaths coming into leeds after a day in the saddle. we raised a bit for charity so the pressure sore was worth it - just
Yeah, leeds to l'pool canal.
I've ridden leeds to skipton before, but didn't really pay much attention to places to stop etc, just head down and do it as quick as possible!
It wouldn't be my first choice for a long ride, but it will be a large mixed abilities group so best to keep it as flat as possible. Plus it's for charity.
I did Leeds to Liverpool on my todd a few years back on a HT (ouch) in just over 17 hours (not fast, but it rained ALL day on 24th July!)....and those winds in Lancs...I was swearing my face off into thin air at frustation,
I bl**dy loved it though, I used a site called TeamAldi for advice, a bunch of lads that did it previously and documented the lot. It was extremely helpful!
EDIT: This is their blog: http://teamaldi.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/team-aldi.html
littleborough [url= https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/empw?url=https:%2F%2Fmaps.google.co.uk%2Fmaps%3Fhl%3Den%26ie%3DUTF8%26ll%3D53.642752,-2.093518%26spn%3D0.001654,0.004823%26t%3Dm%26z%3D18%26vpsrc%3D6%26output%3Dembed&hl=en&gl=uk ]perhaps[/url] small laybay right next to canal...just over road is a path under the railway and access to the Co-Op for any supplies.
did it a few years back...once over two days to spec the route and then on the day we did the main run in 14hrs. Another group did it in two days with a stop over in Burnley (Premier Inn quite near the canal)
we had four support stops...one near Appley Bridge (breakfast), one in Burnley (lunch), one in Barnoldswick (top-up) and one near Bingley (just for encouragement)
that teamaldi blogspot was really useful - if you want any more details drop me an email
Check a map closely for the canal around Burnley. It's impassible for a while and you've to go across the roads, and it's really badly signposted (or at least, it was).
forget my previous post...wrong canal !